Caribbean Tourism Stakeholders Remain Optimistic about the Industry’s Future

Bermuda (April 16, 2009) – The worldwide economic and financial crisis that’s been pounding tourism so hard in the Caribbean region is not making a dent in the optimism of the industry’s major players who attended this year’s Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Investment Conference (CHTIC) at the Fairmont Southampton Hotel in Bermuda.

For many of the participants the sessions at the two-day event were good, marked with plentiful information about where the markets and the real-estate segment are heading. Though a sense of gloominess hanged in the air and fewer attendees showed up this time up –compared to the 2008 CHTIC edition in Trinidad & Tobago- many industry experts and veteran stakeholders are seeing better days ahead come 2010.

An urgent call was made at CHTIC to rally the efforts of both the private and the public sectors in a bid to prevent Caribbean tourism from slipping further away as a result of the ongoing economic and financial crisis.

“Both the private and public sectors of the Caribbean have to work together in order to train and enlighten more our Caribbean nationals about the importance of tourism and get them involved in the tourism industry,” said Sir Royston O. Hopkins, KCMG, owner and chairman of Spice Island Beach Resort in Grenada.

Mr. Hopkins, the recipient of this year’s Bill Bissell Lifetime Achievement Award, also believes the Caribbean must ramp up its efforts to better train and enlighten the local residents about the importance of tourism for the region.

“Senior posts and high-paying jobs within the industry are for people outside the region because we don’t have sufficient people trained to take the reins of the massive expansion of hotels that’s been going on over the past 20 years. The governments have to get involved also because they’re the policymakers,” Mr. Hopkins added.

Other attendants to this year’s CHTIC in Bermuda are equally concerned about the future of investment in hotel and non-hotel sectors within the Caribbean. For some experts, the key to success lies in making local investors pour their money in the region’s properties and facilities, rather than somewhere else, at a time when funds are now so hard to come by.

However, for other boldface names that attended the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Investment Conference in Bermuda, the local industry won’t be out of the woods so easily and their prospects for the upcoming summer and autumn travel seasons are somewhat bleak.

“We don’t know how this coming summer and fall travel seasons are going to fare for the Caribbean because most people of making last-minute trips,” says Cesar Campbell, CEO of the Turks & Caicos Hotel & Tourism Association. “Let’s wait and see. Maybe next year things are going to look brighter.”